What value home improvements?

[dj_venom]

Originally Posted by Darzog

Back to the topic at hand. It's not like this guy was selling his daughter into slavery. He was selling her to a family that wanted a child of their own. I think the reason I'm not as upset by this as you are is that I don't see this as treating a child as a commodity. I see the money as a convenience fee. Think about it this way... if you go into a grocery store and buy popcorn that you have to take home and cook yourself, you will pay much less than if you buy popcorn at the movies. Why? Because they have cooked it for you and have it ready for you at the place you want to eat it at (the movies). You are paying more for the convenience of getting what you want in an easy and timely manner. You are not paying for the popcorn itself, you are paying for the way that it is given to you.

Not really, if you buy the already cooked stuff in a shop, it's much cheaper, they charge extra because of the monopoly in existence.

Originally Posted by Darzog

I see this situation in a similar way. The family wasn't paying because they wanted to own a child. They were paying so they could skip the red tape associated with a formal adoption process and the lengthy delays in getting a child. They were interested enough in having a child they were willing to pay (sacrifice money) in order to speed up the process. The father was getting payment for offering that convenience. The process itself is what is dictating the payment, not ownership of the child. The child would not be property to the new parents, she would have been a member of the family.

I'm sorry, but I must disagree with you there:

Originally Posted by Article

Schneider said the couple wanted to contact attorneys and follow legal adoption procedures, but the man did not want to involve attorneys.

Secondly, we can't know what was in the contract to be signed. As you and Lestat have said, we do have to wait for more information, but obviously a contract would have been signed, it just depended what was in that...

Originally Posted by Darzog

I see this as very different from selling a child as property or as a slave. Because of that difference in opinion I am not as emotional or appalled by the situation as you seem to be.

So would you, or would you not, say the child is worth $10,000? Because to me, it reads as though that is how much the child was worth to him, something that will be branded to the child for the rest of their life.

Originally Posted by Darzog

And the point that Lestat and I both keep coming back to is that we don't know what the motivation of the situation was. We don't know everything that was going on, and until we can know for sure what really happened, we're not ready to just cast the guy to the wolves.

Well I'm not ready to help him do home repairs .

[Fiona]

I agree that we have very little information on which to base a judgement. But I think there are some things which at least need to be considered:

@Lestat

1. I cannot accept this in terms of cultural relativism. Sorry Lestat, but the fact that some places give fathers (or parents) ownership rights over their children does not make it OK. I am conscious that you probably know a great deal about the effects of such power, but I am not easily persuaded that the mothers of children sold by their fathers are not distressed. No culture is homegeneous but to say it is not emotive would need some filling out for me.

2. I am also a little uneasy by the implication that "life is cheap" in places where infant mortality is high. This was the situation in Europe not that long ago and everything I have read suggests that people were very unhappy about the deaths of their children. Siblings may not have felt the same but I do not imagine that acceptance of an inevitable situation indicates contentment

3. You are correct when you say we do not know whether he chose to raise the child alone. I will stick my neck out and guess he did not...any more than millions of other single parents. I cannot see the relevance of this

4. You say the child is young enough that this may be less traumatic, and it is true that there is some evidence that young children fare better in adoption. It is also true that there is a high incidence of breakdown particularly in adolecence; that is improving with better matching - another argument in favour of a lengthy process. But the child will not be young forever - what do you think she would make of the circumstances of her adoption when she is older?

@ Darzog

1. You say that the man wants to get rid of the child, and the money is perhaps secondary. Perhaps. The wrong lies in the first wish, as I thought you agreed when you discussed the context in which people should have children in another thread.

2. You say that he did not sell the child into slavery. How do you (or he) know that. The regulations surrounding adoption exist because baby farming and other forms of abuse were discovered to be dangers within private arrangements. No system will be perfect in reducing those risks but such problems are far less common now than in the past and I contend that regulation is the reason for this

3. The second family could also have applied for a legal adoption. It takes time for proper inquiry to be made, but at least in this country families willing to take older, disabled or ethnic minority children are like hens' teeth. Why circumvent a system designed to safeguard children when the service you are offering is in short supply? The article says they wished to do it legally. But as the situation appears they were not willing to pay to speed up the process; they were willing to pay to circumvent it completely

@ Damuna Nova.

You say that social workers, social services and the quality of child care provided are "crap". May I ask what you base your opinion on?

[Lestat]

@ Fiona: I tried give some ideas why this man was doing this, so people maybe try to understand why he did this, and to try to get some context, before we start calling people "filth" and using words as "atrocity", "looney" or "idiot".

That it is wrong what he did, I do not deny; but I strongly object to some of the dehumanising terms used in the thread, while we don't know the whole situation. I'm not saying the guy should walk free, but as Darzog said, people were maybe villifying a bit too much.

[Fiona]

Originally Posted by Lestat

@ Fiona: I tried give some ideas why this man was doing this, so people maybe try to understand why he did this, and to try to get some context, before we start calling people "filth" and using words as "atrocity", "looney" or "idiot".

That it is wrong what he did, I do not deny; but I strongly object to some of the dehumanising terms used in the thread, while we don't know the whole situation. I'm not saying the guy should walk free, but as Darzog said, people were maybe villifying a bit too much.

Fair enough. I do not see those terms as helpful either. Nor do I see much merit in jail, except insofar as it may deter any growth in such a practice.

As I said at the start, I did not think there would be much difference of opinion about whether what he did was right or wrong. My original question was actually about whether his actions automatically implied the child would be better off elsewhere; or whether other kinds of support for him would be more beneficial for the child. I am not in the business of making moral judgements. I am required to try to reach a conclusion about what should happen in the child's best interest, once these difficult situations have arisen. The "pleas in mitigation" are relevant, as are the issues raised by those who take a reasoned but negative position. But only insofar as they help me to reach a conclusion about what is in the child's best interest. It is important to consider all the relevant facts and to give them proper relative weight. That is really really difficult to do

I was interested in how other people approached it, and it seems I was not very clear

[TonyMontana1638]

Originally Posted by Lestat

Oh, and, giving her away for free in stead of selling her, could also be interpreted as associating no value at all to her being.

True, but I'd say there's at least a chance in such a case that it was being done for her own good. Expecting money in return, however, nixes that possibility.

[Darzog]

First off, I'm not saying that the guy is innocence or guilt free. I've never said that what he did was right or even that I think he was justified in doing it.

The points I have beed raising were partially acting as a devil's advocate since everyone was jumping to too much of a reaction based on the information provided and partially because I felt that the wrong aspects of this situation were getting the focus.

In my first post my only point was that what he did with the money was not important. Using the money to make home repairs is actually one of the more innocent things he could have been doing with the money. Had he used the money to pay medical bills or repay a loan or something similar that would have shown that his intent was to get money and he just used his daughter to get it. With the information we have I don't really believe that the money was the driving force, so the focus of people's reactions shouldn't have been on the fact that he was making home repairs.

My second post started by saying that I think people are villifying the guy too much. Not that he wasn't a villain, just that people were making assumptions that might have been painting him in a worse light than he deserved (assuming his intentions were more evil than they were). This is where I was acting as a devil's advocate trying to offer other assumptions about what might have brought the situation about. The article mentions that he owned a nail salon but we don't know how successful it was. Maybe he had to work 12 hours a day and couldn't afford a baby sitter and as a single parent he couldn't hack it. If the situation was changed slightly and an immigrant woman had to work long hours and couldn't afford to give her child a good home, is she evil if she decides to give her baby away (for the moment let's ignore the money and focus on giving the baby away, we'll get to the money next).

You are right that I attach a high value to the responsibility of having children. But my comments in the other thread are pushing for responsibility before you have a child (in a way making sure you don't have a child unless you are ready for it). Once you have the child, if you are not able to provide for it I think that finding it a better home is actually a good thing. I understand that adoption can be very traumatic for the child through their entire life, but in many instances it would be more traumatic to stay with a parent that doesn't want a child or can't provide for them. I don't think adoption is evil, so I don't call this guy evil immediately just because he didn't want to raise his daughter.

Now for the money... in my mind, this is still not the pivital point of the situation. It does muddy the waters some and it does cast a harsher light on the guy, but I still feel that this guy should be judged on why he was giving up his daughter and the money is a smaller piece of the puzzle.

I know this sounds very detatched but getting paid vs. not getting paid doesn't really make this situation evil to me (unless we learn what his motivations were; if they show that the money was more important than his daughter's well being then that tips the scales). Yes it would be better to go through formal channels, yes it is safer for the parents and children, but did the guy really know that? We don't know. And that is really the crux of the matter. We don't know enough to want to lynch this guy.

My personal opinion is that the guy didn't have his daughter's well being as his priority and she should be removed from his household. I think he does deserve punishment. But I also am recognizing that these are based on assumptions and not on the facts. Because we don't know enough facts to really understand the situation having an extreme reaction in either way is not just. It was the extreme reactions based on assumptions that I was responding to; I was not defending the guy. And one other point before I head out... many of the article's comments are intentionally inflammatory but we don't know what the evidence was. We only know how the article decided to spin the situation.

[TonyMontana1638]

Originally Posted by Darzog

First off, I'm not saying that the guy is innocence or guilt free. I've never said that what he did was right or even that I think he was justified in doing it.

The points I have beed raising were partially acting as a devil's advocate since everyone was jumping to too much of a reaction based on the information provided and partially because I felt that the wrong aspects of this situation were getting the focus.

I thought about doing that too, but I figured it'd probably be too much work trying to fend off everyone else's attacks so I let it go. This has all been a shining reminder why...

[dj_venom]

@Darzog and Lestat:

I know you guys are playing devil's advocate, which can be difficult (especially in cases like this), so as I always say afterwards, I don't consider any of this personally, because I realise the people here are rational, not immoral.

Originally Posted by Lestat

@ Fiona: I tried give some ideas why this man was doing this, so people maybe try to understand why he did this, and to try to get some context, before we start calling people "filth" and using words as "atrocity", "looney" or "idiot".

Can't remember if I did that, chances are I might have, but I have a personal opinion, then go logical...

Originally Posted by Fiona

You say that social workers, social services and the quality of child care provided are "crap". May I ask what you base your opinion on?

And there we have it, I too, am interested in the response.

[Damuna_Nova]

Originally Posted by Fiona

@ Damuna Nova.

You say that social workers, social services and the quality of child care provided are "crap". May I ask what you base your opinion on?

Personal experience, experiences of others, the news...quite a lot of things all pointing in the direction of it being crap.

[Darzog]

Originally Posted by Damuna_Nova

Personal experience, experiences of others, the news...quite a lot of things all pointing in the direction of it being crap.

Would you mind supplying your address? My wife (2 degrees in Social Work and currently working as a therapist at a juvenile treatment facility) may want to stop by and give you a swift kick. All in the name of facilitating your emotional well-being of course.

[Damuna_Nova]

She can take that swift kick in exchange for her job.

[Fiona]

Originally Posted by Damuna_Nova

Personal experience, experiences of others, the news...quite a lot of things all pointing in the direction of it being crap.

It would be interesting if you were to elaborate a little, though if it is personal I accept that might not be possible

[Magrus]

Originally Posted by Damuna_Nova

I say "care" because social workers, the social serices and the quality of childcare proided are, well...crap.

Frankly, I agree. I have only dealt with 1 professional of any of those services who was actually nice, thoughtful and caring. The rest were indifferent, jaded and looking for a way out of their work while still getting a paycheck.

[Darzog]

Originally Posted by Magrus

Frankly, I agree. I have only dealt with 1 professional of any of those services who was actually nice, thoughtful and caring. The rest were indifferent, jaded and looking for a way out of their work while still getting a paycheck.

That is a common trait in many fields and is more representative of people, not social workers specifically.